Telangana Jana Samithi president Prof M Kodandaram, who has been putting up aggressive posture in demanding number of seats for the party in the grand alliance, is learnt to have fallen in line after realizing that his stubborn attitude would only benefit the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi.
The TJS submitted a list of 36 names of the candidates and constituencies to the Congress party for contesting the coming assembly elections in Telangana.
It has finally agreed to scale down the demand for number of seats to 17 – one assembly segment in each parliamentary constituency. However, the Congress is not willing to concede more than nine seats.
Upset with this, Kodandaram called for an emergency meeting of the party executive on Wednesday to take the future course of action if there was no response from the Congress party.
However, things have changed after the entry of Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu into Hyderabad.
He told the Telangana TDP leaders to compromise on the number of seats in the alliance.
“For us, the number of seats is not important, but the alliance is important to defeat the TRS. For that, we have to be prepared for a sacrifice. We shall demand our pie after the alliance comes to power,” Naidu told them.
This has put a sort of pressure on Kodandaram. His advisors also told him that if he remains stubborn, the Congress might take him easy.
If the TJS walks out of the alliance and contests all the 119 seats, it will split the anti-establishment votes and it will ultimately benefit the TRS. On the other hand, if the TJS agrees for 10 seats, the alliance will have the power.
“If the alliance comes to power, Kodandaram can call the shots and demand a bigger share in the MLC seats and other posts and positions,” his advisors told him.
That is precisely why Kodanda declared that all was not over with regard to alliance.
“The grand alliance will continue to fight for restoration of democracy in the state. But, the Congress should ensure that the seat sharing talks conclude at the earliest and the alliance partners enter the campaign soon,” he said.